


A Man I Somehow Managed to Accidentally Murder

by jedjubeed



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Diary-Like Entries, Disappearance, M/M, Multi, Murder Mystery, Non-Chronological, Papillon-esque, Series of letters, Third Person POV, first person POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 11:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20965553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedjubeed/pseuds/jedjubeed
Summary: An Autumn morning, Crowley woke up alone. This wasn't unusual. There was no note, no sign of activity.Some time later he was charged and convicted with the murder of his husband.





	A Man I Somehow Managed to Accidentally Murder

“...The jury finds Anthony J. Crowley guilty in the first degree murder of Aziraphale H. Sanctus.”

_”Your honor-”_

“All rise!”

_Crack!_

The sound of wood hammer on wooden tabletop made Anthony J. Crowley flinch. The only thing it did was serve as a reminder - serve to drag up memories of the way his hammer felt, the way the collision sent buzzing shocks up the handle and into his tender fingers wrapped around. 

The problem was, Crowley didn’t do it. He didn’t murder anybody, and as far as he was concerned, Aziraphale wasn’t even dead. Crowley looked over at his lawyer, who shrugged and snapped his briefcase shut. Crowley took this as a silent ‘Sorry, kid. There was nothing I, or anybody else, could have done.’ It was comforting in the kind of way that your dad telling you to rub some dirt into a cut is comforting. It told him that he wanted to help, just didn’t know how. If he had peroxide and cotton he could fix it - but he didn’t. All he had was dirt, and Crowley’s sliced open, scraped, raw, bloody knees.

They were dismissed.

-

It’s funny, isn’t it? What’s that saying? In abnormal situations, abnormal behavior becomes normal. That doesn’t sound right, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I heard the saying once in college, and another time in the city. Is this an abnormal situation?

I don’t belong here. This is abnormal for me. Everyone’s behavior is abnormal to me, which must be the normal here, so is my behavior considered abnormal, or normal? I think that’s the root of the phrase. Everything becomes normal because everything is abnormal. Ab- is a prefix for “away”. Abnormal is the abolishment of normal - I suppose abolish is just the ab- of establish. Establishment. Away.

I am away. I never read many books, I hated them, but there’s nothing else to do. It’s so nostalgic, the feeling of the paper in my hands, the smell of the books. It smells like you, and it feels like you. You feel like old books. You felt like old books. 

I feel as if I can feel the nostalgia slipping from my fingers. The bookshop has lost its magic without you. The kind of energy you pumped into it, the way you looked after it and existed within it, the way you chased customers off and didn’t open until 5 pm and closed at 4 am - all of that is gone. I’m the only one here and it’s gone. I can tell everyone else knows the magic is gone, too, though I haven’t gotten any mafia guys banging at the door to give up the property. I know they had nothing to do with this, but I think they might know the bare minimum of what happened.

It comforts me, slightly, to know that they’re leaving me alone. I hate comfort. I wish I could constantly be plunged into a bath of ice water and have my hands held to licking flames of candles and plunged into boiling oil. That’s what every other feeling is, at least. I’m getting used to the temperature. What’s that old phrase? Get out of the kitchen if you can’t handle the heat.

The kitchen is on fire, I think. All the doors are locked. I can’t find my way out, because there’s too much smoke.

I’ve picked up smoking recently. Again. I know you hate it, and I hate it too. I hate being comfortable, so I picked up smoking. 

I don’t smoke inside, if you’re wondering. I knew that’s what you care about. Remember when we used to smoke together? Sometimes I try and bring back the scent of cigarettes lingering on your vest. It never works. I don’t work any more.

Sometimes it becomes quite strange to me that we both worked. Together, and at a workplace. We did things and were compensated in return. I don’t work any more. I spend all day lurking around the bookshop, looking at things, looking through things, looking. I spend all my time looking for you. Where are you?

Abcomfortable. The abolishment of comfort. I think that’s what I’m doing right now, on purpose. What would you say to that, if you were here?

Probably that I was ridiculous, and you’d make us tea, and I’d offer to take you out to dinner, and you would accept, and we would get champagne drunk and I would drive you home. It’s a short drive. In a psychology class I learned that we subconsciously do things to return to a psychological and physiological homeostasis if something upsets us or makes us uncomfortable. Why don’t I do that? Am I broken?

In abnormal environments, abnormal behavior becomes normal.

I don’t agree with that statement. I think in abnormal environments, normal behavior becomes abnormal. Isn’t that right?

This bookshop is abnormal without you. I can’t drink tea or wine and I can’t go out to dinner. That’s normal behavior. It was, at least. It’s abnormal now. I wish I remembered anything from my English classes so I could tell you how to make a sentence. You wouldn’t listen, but I’d talk anyhow.

**Author's Note:**

> This is subject to change. I just want to gauge public opinion of my work thus far right now - no post schedule is set. Chapters will vary greatly in length.


End file.
